Game of Thrones season 7 illegally viewed more than a billion times
Game of Thrones is a hugely popular show, and every year we see statistics regarding how many times different episodes have been downloaded illegally.
Season 7, which has just finished on HBO, was easily the most pirated yet, helped in no small part by leaks from hackers which saw episodes available to stream through Kodi, and download on pirate sites and BitTorrent before they were even broadcast.
Piracy tracking firm Muso says that each episode of Season 7 was pirated around 140 million times, and the season as a whole saw over a billion illegal steams and downloads (and that’s without including the Chinese market).
In comparison, it’s believed each episode was viewed 32 million times via legal means.
Muso breaks down the source of the illegal views, stating that streams were responsible for 85 percent of views, with torrents making up 9 percent and direct downloads accounting for 6 percent.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, Muso's co-founder Andy Chatterley pointed out the various leaks were a big reason for the high number of illegal views.
It's no secret that HBO has been plagued by security breaches throughout the latest season, which has seen some episodes leak before broadcast and added to unlicensed activity. In addition to the scale of piracy when it comes to popular shows, these numbers demonstrate that unlicensed streaming can be a far more significant type of piracy than torrent downloads.
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